It’s a show about Nothing.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 01/30/07 at 11:01:55 am

At a Loss for Words

I would like to be one of them bloggers that has something new to ramble on about all the time. A new post, or maybe a couple every day. I enjoy writing and feeling like a contributing member of the “blogosphere” however it amazes me that there are weblogs out there with fresh material all the time. I’ve found that one of the hardest parts of having up-to-date content is just that, content. I mean Right now, if I didn’t come across this comic and think of a subject to write about, the advert I did earlier would still be at the top of the page. I don’t want that… But I don’t want to start blogging about nothing either.

Over the last couple weeks I’ve been thinking about starting a technical weblog where I could do daily articles and reviews, and then I would keep this one somewhat personal related. If you one of the couple people who have been reading my posts for a while, you would recall that I used to post articles and things I come across on here all the time. I stopped that because I didn’t want to mix the focus of the site. Then again I guess that’s hard to do when I’m unsure of what I want to focus on…

It Goes Vroom! Vroom!

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 01/29/07 at 01:01:18 pm

So most of you know that I’ve been having a lot of car problems lately. My Ford Taurus finally died and I’ve been forced to look for something to last me through the rest of winter. I’ve been looking at beaters online, trying to find something cheap, or something moderately priced to maybe last me until I get my 3329 lb. Ford Paperweight paid off.

I ended up getting a car this weekend, It’s newer Chevy Lumina I came across at a used car dealer not far from home. It looks good, the interior is real nice, and it runs great. I got the car at a good price and I actually own it, which is a good feeling.

I spent most of the day yesterday installing my SIRIUS and getting the car ready for every day use. I never have time do to anything but drive as fast as I can to work and back so I don’t get a lot of chances to mess with a project like that outside of the weekend.

That and I really missed my satellite radio! With our exclusive redneck and/or super trendy music selection we have here, and the annoying non-stop commercials, FM could seriously make my ears bleed. I really did miss my smooth electronica in the morning, and progressive house on the way home. I think that was the worst part of not having my car…

Movie Review: An Inconvenient Truth

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 01/26/07 at 09:01:15 pm

So this movie has been out for a while, I just got around from renting it from NetFlix… I thought I would jot down what I thought.

I must admit, I didn’t think much of Al Gore before this movie. I mean, it’s not that I disliked him; I just didn’t know a whole lot about him and what he believed in. However I think I’ve gained a lot of respect for Gore and what he stands for after seeing the film. I really didn’t expect much and I was thoroughly impressed.

When it comes to the movie itself, I guess there isn’t a whole lot to review; the film was basically based around his presentation. However there was a good amount of background information on Gore and why he feels the way he does, why he’s doing the research and these presentations, and why he was in politics. It put the pieces together well, it made me understand what he’s all about and the point he is trying to get across…
Everything in the movie blended well and acted as a detailed prequel to his next point in the presentation. I mean you would think that a movie based around a live presentation would be boring but it kept me watching, I wanted to learn more.

The presentation I keep mentioning is about Global Warming, which personally is a subject that I’ve recently become mildly interested in. He goes over what it is, how it happens, what the causes are, who’s causing it, and why. What impressed me is that the information he presented was quality, it made sense and it has not only expanded my knowledge about the subject, but really opened my eyes to what’s going on now, and what to expect because of it. It’s sick really; the movie is essentially about the end of the world.

The reason I say that is because although the measures we need to take are realistic, and may not be as drastic as they appear. With money grubbing terrorists such as Bush, and massive forces like the American automotive industry, and the oil industry… Who knows if our nation will be able to help stop our share of what’s happening. I know that my future decisions primarily concerning energy consumption will definitely be influenced by what I have learned tonight.

An Inconvenient Truth was an amazing movie, I highly recommend seeing it.

Another day, another dollar.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 01/24/07 at 02:01:57 pm

When I get into work in the morning the first thing I do is check voicemail for my extension and an after hours extension. The other morning there was a message that was both funny and creepy in one swift rush. It was a lady, definitely an older lady and she was screaming, yelling, and overall genuinely frantic. In the message she was yelling about the TV, that it was sucking her in and to have someone come help her, because she was being sucked into the television… I’m serious, she was just freaking out.

I guess point of the story is not that there’s some meth addicted old lady leaving messages on my voicemail, but it’s that it’s always nice to have something put an interesting start or twist to a typical week. I mean, I wish I could come into work every day to messages of people’s televisions trying to eat them. That would be something to look forward to.

I feel that if I look forward to something during the week, it actually goes by very quickly, which is always nice. For instance, this week I have some dinner plans with some friends set up for tomorrow, I mean it’s nothing extravagant, but it doesn’t have to be. I’m really looking forward to next week, Tuesday Microsoft Windows Vista will be released for public sale, and Thursday is the Vista launch event at the Minneapolis Convention Center, I’m going for all of the vendors and freebies, but I’m also looking forward to some of the great workshops and speakers that will be offered…. and the freebies.

Speaking of the launch, I’m sure I’ll be taking tons of pictures of the event, so maybe I’ll experiment with the blog posting features Flickr offers while I’m at the event, like a live coverage kind of deal… That could be fun…

More Changes. RSS Goodness.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 01/22/07 at 02:01:13 pm

I’ve got that itch again, the itch to move and completely change things around my website. I can’t help it, I’m never fully happy with it, even now.. There are things I want different. That’s half the fun though, making something and fine-tuning it just the way you want it, and then doing it all over again.

I did however make one permanent change, which pertains to my RSS feed. I have moved all of my RSS to Feedburner for tracking and optimization purposes. I found a wicked nice WordPress plug in over at OrderedList that automatically forwards the WP feeds to Feedburner, and the current feed subscribers are forwarded also.

I put a small selection of syndication buttons back on the side bar, they may be moved around but I think I plan to keep them. I would like to focus on streamlining RSS and SEO on the site, rather then changing the design every 5 minutes. I think this will help, maybe.

Expect everything you see here to be changed a few more times, until the itch wares off and I have to catch up on the work I should be doing.

5 Things You Didn’t Know About Me

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 01/18/07 at 04:01:46 pm

I was tagged by Chris, so here are 5 things you may not know about me –

1. When I was younger, like 7 or 8. I was obsessed with the dream of being a Police Officer. I would stick paper badges to myself with like Elmer’s Glue, and run around giving random people hand written parking tickets and such. One time I blocked off a public street with some of those small orange sports cones, sort of like a makeshift DUI checkpoint.

2. I was also crazy about Legos; I had my own room downstairs in our house that was dedicated to a massive Lego city I had built. I had 2 trains that ran around the entire city, a major airport, street lamps that used white Christmas tree lights, I had the wires ran under the grass green carpet for extra realism, and I had a stadium that was made of over 8,000 pieces. I had a very creative mind…

3. I am completely repulsed by cigarettes. It’s not smoking, it’s just the overall mouth contact thing and the ashtray that bothers me. I have trouble saying the word cigarette; I didn’t even like typing it just now. I wont touch them, won’t go near them. I think this phobia runs along with my mild OCD.

4. I wear black socks. I was actually talking about this with a friend the other day. I didn’t think that this was very strange but apparently it is. I wear black crew socks every day, I prefer the look of black socks. But here’s the kicker, I rarely wear the same pair twice. I buy new socks all the time, and I wear them once, and they get thrown into a huge pile in my hamper, or thrown away. Another phobia I guess, I just don’t like the feel after they have been washed.

5. I’ve owned 7 cars in the last 5 years. Chris says that I go through cars like a crack addict, and it’s true. My last 3 cars have been financed, I get bored of the vehicle or it starts having problems and I’ll just roll my financing and get another. Recently however that plan backfired. I owe $1700 on a car that doesn’t currently run and I’m looking for something cheap to last me the rest of the winter. I plan to get a brand new Impala this spring.

Alright, now it’s my turn! I’m going to tag… Nick, Josh, and Bug!

Mmmmm del.icio.us

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 01/18/07 at 02:01:19 pm

When del.icio.us launched a few years back, I jumped on it and starting using it to organize and universally access all of my bookmarks and favorite websites. However when it was first launched, it obtained popularity very quickly which brought the few servers they were running at the time to their knees. del.icio.us was down constantly, and when it was working it was painfully slow, so I jumped ship.

I’ve been using Scuttle for the last couple years, that is if you call the occasional visit real usage. The problem with Scuttle is that wasn’t real easy to add new bookmarks. When I’m adding bookmarks to my social bookmarking, I want it to be as easy as adding bookmarks in my browser, so I don’t have to add bookmarks in the browser. I hate using the bookmarks in the browser. Additionally, it just doesn’t seem like Scuttle is very popular. If I want to seriously use something like storing all of my bookmarks online, I want the place to be around for a while…

When I revamped the site last week, I decided to give del.icio.us another shot. It’s been a few years… I’m sure they have data centers full of powerful server goodness by now. Also the del.icio.us integration around the Internet is great, I wanted to be a part of that. The Firefox extension for del.icio.us is amazing, I can actually add and organize bookmarks more easily to del.icio.us then I can in my browser, which is precisely what I want.

Anyways, if you want to check out what I’ve got so far, Click Here or the new del.icio.us button in my About page.

Glenn Wolsey

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 01/15/07 at 12:01:13 pm

I came across an interesting blog this weekend. At first glance it appears to be a run of the mill personal website with a good clean design, and some quality content. What’s surprising is that the owner and author of this website is a 14 year old from New Zealand. His name is Glenn Wolsey, and he currently writes for Macguide magazine and does work with MacZOT, a popular apple enthusiast podcast. He has had multiple interviews on national television and local newspapers and he is currently ranked one of the top 20,000 bloggers in the world.

He keeps his website up to date, and as I mentioned before it has a lot of quality content. He does a weekly photo wallpaper deal which is how I stumbled upon the site in the first place. It looks like he has also won web development awards and such… he’s 14! I was playing with legos and tinkering with bicycles at 14. This guy is well on his way to a very successful technology career.

Anyway, I highly recommend checking out his website GlennWolsey.com

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